Devotion
by srslycirce
Summary: AU oneshot. A soldier discovers his prisoner has a profound importance to the enemy commander, Ludwig Beilschmidt, and intends to use this to his advantage. Ger x Ita, France narrates. Warn for blood and death. Repost, with several things fixed.


Bonnefoy awoke to two realizations: one, that he had fallen asleep on guard duty and was a moron for it, and two, that there was a whisper of movement and a clink of metal in the room, on this side of the bars – it could not be the prisoner. He fumbled for the lamp and his gun, whichever he could find first; he switched the first on and aimed the other at the sound. Before him now crouched a figure at the now-unlocked door to the cell across the room - a man like a curled tiger, eyes reflecting wildly. "Don't move," Bonnefoy told him, and took a few moments to breathe and awaken. The lamp wasn't much of one; it took Bonnefoy a long few seconds to resolve the light into a full picture - the intruder half-standing before their prisoner, ready to spring in defense. A man whose face he knew... "Commander Beilschmidt."  
If Beilschmidt heard the disbelief or the bemusement in Bonnefoy's voice, he didn't show it. He only stood frozen, interrupted mid-motion, very unnatural. His face was unreadable, as it always was in photographs. "The Commander Beilschmidt," Bonnefoy continued. "Beilschmidt the madman. Beilschmidt the murderer. Beilschmidt the stabbed-five-people-at-a-rally-before-the-regime change. That Beilschmidt?" He felt compelled to tell the man his own identity because he felt so unsure of it himself. Beilschmidt, here, now? Something was very wrong about this situation. "What brings you here?"  
Beilschmidt did not make any indication of being alive. In the enclosed silence, the sound of his breath was barely noticeable, as small as that of the unconscious prisoner beside him. Bonnefoy searched for any kind of emotion in the man's face - derision? shock? fear? - but could find nothing. Well, this could be fixed. He did have the gun in his hand, after all. Bonnefoy set the lamp down and stood, gun still trained. He walked slowly over to Beilschmidt, who watched him intently - the first sign of movement he had shown. "Now. You are a fearsome leader, a ruthless strategist, a calculating killer," said Bonnefoy, thinking aloud because he had the leisure to monologue. "And yet. Here you are, in an enemy base, seemingly alone, at a complete tactical disadvantage... why? Someone as important and presumably intelligent as you? It doesn't add up. Was it for... this?" And he gestured at the soldier.

From his years as an interrogator, Bonnefoy had learned how to tell when he had discovered something pertinent, and though Beilschmidt did not say or do anything there was a tension that told Bonnefoy he was onto something. So he smiled, and continued. "Let's see. This man - boy, really - is important enough for you to risk breaking into an enemy prison. But his tags say he's only a private, certainly no one strategically important. He was carrying nothing of note when we captured him. He shouldn't know anything too important, and even if he does, your soldiers tend to be remarkably faithful. Most would rather die in interrogation than give us a scrap of intel. Not that we would kill them, of course. Usually."  
He looked down at Beilschmidt, observing, never moving the gun, as a reminder of who was in charge here. Nothing had caused any more of a response. It might be better to wait then. Bonnefoy stooped a little, so as to loom over Beilschmidt and the captive. After a few seconds, the soldier was the one who moved; apparently the commotion was enough to bring him into semi-consciousness. He did not open his eyes, only moved his mouth in wordless shapes. One of his hands fluttered, searching for anything. It found Beilschmidt's sleeve, but could do nothing but pluck feebly at it and then fall back down as the soldier's head lolled to one side. The boy was in bad shape, and this environment wasn't conducive to healing. It was frankly a little surprising he could do this much.  
Beilschmidt was doing an admirable job of remaining unresponsive and ice-gazed, but Bonnefoy could see an emerging concern being studiously repressed. Excellent. "Clearly this young man's well-being has some importance to you, enough for you to risk a significant chance of death and capture. In fact, I'd say a likelihood. And why on earth - this is a real mystery here, my friend - would you attempt such a foolhardy thing alone? Without backup, you're dead as soon as you're caught. I'd estimate the odds of this retrieval operation succeeding at perhaps 100 to one, at best. If you chose to take such a gamble, you must be far madder than we had thought. And all... for... this." And as punctuation, Bonnefoy kicked the soldier in the ribs, right where the stain on the bandage was darkest. The boy screamed.  
"My God!" cried Beilschmidt, in his own language. He grabbed the soldier and clutched him to his chest, one hand cradling the back of the young man's head. Beilschmidt had dropped all pretense of disinterest now, and had an expression of tenderness that should have caused a murderer of his caliber undying shame. The boy whimpered for a few seconds, eyes flickering open but unseeing, before falling back out of awareness. Beilschmidt held him close and stroked his hair, eyes closed.  
"Well! Fascinating!" said Bonnefoy with a grin. His opponent was not trying to hide any longer, and glared with fury and what might have been shame. "Looks like you care... personally for this man, yes? Certainly not a family member, it looks like." (The boy was ruddy and round-faced; Beilschmidt was the sort who bore a strong resemblance to a marble statue. Regardless, the relationship seemed more than fraternal.) "You know, I would never think of you as a... romantic. You, posterboy of the regime, flawless unfeeling New Man?" Beilschmidt looked like he would have gladly leaped up and strangled Bonnefoy were it not for the cold truth of gunmetal pointed at him. All good. "You know, I'm sure you're well aware that such tendencies would get you killed in moments among your own countrymen. Imagine if word of this got out to your own troops. They'd rip their idol limb from limb. There's a tragic sort of irony in it." It appeared Beilschmidt very much did not enjoy being mocked. Bonnefoy enjoyed mocking people who did not enjoy being mocked.  
"Regardless, it seems you have few options now. If you come quietly, we won't harm you. For now, we'll accommodate you here. We have rooms to spare. I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay." Beilschmidt only looked down at the soldier in his arms. "You know, you're probably getting blood all over that nice neat uniform of yours." No response. No matter, he had accomplished enough. "I'll be right back with a few helpers. Don't go anywhere, now. Adieu." A wink and a little wave would be overkill, Bonnefoy thought, but he did so anyway, and left.

"Hello there!"

Feliciano was used to regretting what came out of his mouth, so this time it didn't come as a surprise. He usually made an effort to act friendly, but there were some situations in which this strategy wasn't so suitable. For instance, when one woke in a cell, dank water seeping into what used to be a neatly starched uniform, and there was only just enough light to make out a silhouette on the other side of the bars, shouting a merry greeting was actually a stupid idea. Curse his groggy brains.

"You're awake." The man's accent was foreign, but not crude. Probably from some sophisticated northern city that Feliciano had never seen the likes of.

"Um. Yeah. Yeah, I am." Well, there was no getting out of this one now. He was going to be interrogated, wasn't he? He didn't really know how to get interrogated properly. Without ruining everything, that is, which was seeming pretty likely…

But all that happened was the guard said "Hm," and turned around, and walked to the other side of the room. Feliciano did nothing but breathe carefully for a few seconds. The air was nice enough here. Stale, certainly, but damp and cool. He had been out in the scalding heat for far too long.

The guard didn't seem to have any intentions of saying anything more. He had taken a seat at a desk across the room, and was now writing something in front of a small lamp which etched his outlines out of the shadows. Feliciano coughed at him. The man didn't make any show of having noticed. A few more seconds passed, which were so laden with dread and anxiety that Feliciano could hardly stand it. If this was what spending a minute imprisoned was like, he couldn't imagine going for much longer. In desperation, he cried, "So how are you doing?" The echoes were strong here.

The guard put his pen down with a click. "Me? Quite well, thank you. Working a guard shift right now. Not locked in a cell at the moment." He seemed amused, not angry. For now, then, Feliciano could keep talking.

"Oh. That's good. I'm, uh, I am in a cell right now. Which is not that fun. Kind of gross, actually. A little cold."

"Really. It feels nice enough in here to me. I'd imagine you'd feel poorly, though. You're wounded."

"I am?" Now that he mentioned it, beneath the numbness bathing all of his limbs Feliciano did feel some dull ache in his side. He sat up, unsticking himself from the muddy floor of his cell, and looked down at as much of himself as he could see. He was heavily bandaged around his middle, and across his left side there was some dark wetness that he hoped was more mud than blood but probably wasn't. "Oh. I… didn't notice that. You patched me up?"

"Not I. The medic here did. Unlike your side, we respect our prisoners."

"Oh! Well, that's nice." A few more seconds passed. There was a leak in the ceiling somewhere, dripping. Feliciano laughed to fill the space, but it just echoed, making things even more hollow than they were before. "I can't believe I didn't notice that. Silly of me, huh?"

"If I may… hypothesize something?"

"Yeah?"

"I believe you are still delirious, as you have been for the past several days. If I were you, I would focus on getting more rest."

This took a few seconds to sink down into Feliciano's mind. "So. Wait. I was awake before?"

"Somewhat. You were speaking, at least."

"Really? What'd I say?"

The guard sighed and leaned back. "You seem to have forgotten that we are on opposite sides of a war, here."

"Oh. Right." Feliciano tried to settle back into a more comfortable position, but one didn't seem to exist. And his leg wasn't moving right, either.

There was a chuckle from the guard. "You did have some… rather interesting things to say. Nothing of tactical use, of course, but it was quite fascinating to hear."

"Oh. Oh, no." There were plenty of things that could mean, and none of them were good. Feliciano waited for an answer, but unless a disturbing little chuckle counted, it never came. "Uh… are you sure you're not going to tell me what I said? Please?"

The guard turned to face him. The lamp only shed light on a sliver of his face, but Feliciano could still see the contours of a smirk. Not much else, though. "Oh, I assure you, it was nothing much coherent. I wouldn't worry about it. The only thing of note was a certain name…" Feliciano knew what this meant. He tried to hide the sharp shiver in his breath. "You kept talking about someone you called Lu."

"Oh, her! Luna. My fiancée back home. You see, she's – "

"That lie sounds well-practiced."

Feliciano fell silent. The wound in his side suddenly felt far worse.

"You're rather amusing, did you know that?"

"I… I have nothing more to say to you." That was a lie too. There were plenty of burning little words Feliciano wanted to say, but they would all probably get him shot.

"Oh, don't worry. You've told me plenty." And the guard picked his pen back up and resumed writing. Feliciano spat into the darkness. The guard hummed a happy battle hymn.

It was several hours before anything of note happened. The guard left for a while, and came back for a while, and left again. Feliciano was getting pretty good at moving between consciousness and unconsciousness, but he wasn't really able to sleep – he was too nervous for it. Was this all? Would he just be stuck here until the war was over? Dear god, how would he spend all this time with nothing to do? At least now he had pain to distract him. And if he had fallen in battle, what had happened to… Feliciano searched his pockets for the photograph. It wasn't there. They had taken it from him. So that was how the guard knew.

When the guard returned, Feliciano lunged at the bars. "You have it! The picture!"

"Hm?" The guard sat down, but this time he turned the chair so that he could face Feliciano. "Oh, this old photo?" He produced the folded triangle from his coat pocket. "You prize it that much, hm?" He unfolded it. "Well, it is awfully sweet. Look at you two, smiling in the sunshine, arms around each other-"

"Stop looking at it!"

"Why? It's not like it's a secret any longer." But he folded it once more. "I have to wonder, though… Why?"

"Why what?"

The guard waved the picture. "Why him? How? You seem to be a reasonable enough young man. Not the brightest I've ever met, certainly, but sane. How could a boy like you ever love such a man?"

"Stop calling me 'boy'. I'm older than I look. I'm twenty-five."

"Really." The guard raised an eyebrow. "And the Commander is how old? Forty?"

"He's nowhere near that old!"

"Regardless of your respective ages. I don't care what sort of person anyone prefers in the bedroom, but I just can't understand…" He stared at the picture without unfolding it. "You do know how many people he has killed? How many towns he has burned? And yet you persist?"

Feliciano frowned. "It's all for a reason. It's not like he's some street-stalking knife maniac. He's a better person than that."

"I suppose you would argue that deep down he is just sad and misunderstood?"

"He's more than that. He's more of a man than you'll ever be."

"Now that's an interesting claim."

"He's brilliant!" Feliciano shouted. "He has these really really great ideas. Stuff you would never even understand. And he's read like every book on the planet. You would not believe how many books this guy has."

"What a glowing moral recommendation. I'm sure that at heaven's gates, the angels will look at him and say, 'Well, on the one hand, he's slaughtered hundreds of innocents. On the other hand, he's read a lot of books.'"

"You don't get it," Feliciano spat. "It's not slaughter. It's for the purity of the human race." The guard smirked at him. "What!"

"It's just that you look so full of wrath right now. It's funny, on a kid like you." Feliciano fumed but said nothing. The guard wrote a few more lines, then put his pen down. "Could you tell me something? Since you know the reasons for this reign of terror so well?" Feliciano said nothing, so the guard continued, softly. "I had a family once. A wife and a daughter. They died in one of your regime's raids. Trapped inside a burning house. Tell me, boy, why was this? What good did it serve?"

"It was for the good of humanity. We only have to kill in order to take hold of the world. Once we have the land under our control-"

The guard slammed a fist against the desk. "She was five. My daughter was five years old. What harm could she have ever done anyone?" Feliciano only glared. "Tell me, boy! If you're so enlightened, tell me!"

"She could have grown up into one of you."

"Okay. We're done here." The guard stood, pushed the chair in, and left. Well, that had been an interesting conversation, for about five minutes. Feliciano sat back. What was he supposed to do now? Think? He concentrated instead on falling unconscious once more. After a while, he got it.

"Gentlemen."  
The stage was set the way Bonnefoy preferred. The two prisoners were bound to chairs, blindfolded, facing each other. A lightbulb hung from the ceiling between them, a little too close for comfort. And Bonnefoy stood, holding the knife. The gun he had left on the desk; a blade was the best tool for this job.  
"You know, I've been thinking about your situation," he told Beilschmidt, undoing the blindfold. Beilschmidt's expression did not change when he saw his trembling lover; he only blinked. So he had steeled himself well. That would change. "There's a certain resignation in what you've done. You came here knowing you'd be caught. Because even if you did somehow manage to retrieve the boy without our knowing, what would you do then? Return to your post with him mysteriously in tow and continue what must have been a life of deception and fear? It must have been difficult for you. If this boy means so much to you, you must have been truly desperate." Bonnefoy paused. "Therefore, considering-"  
"Um! Hi! Excuse me!" shouted the soldier. "Are you trying to talk to me?"  
Bonnefoy ignored him. "Considering-"  
"Because if you are," the boy interrupted, "I don't understand the language you're speaking. So I have no idea what you're saying. Sorry."  
"Be quiet, you," Bonnefoy said in their language, then switched back to his own. "So. Considering your situation, I've devised a way for this to have a happy ending for all of us. I propose a bargain. You tell us your military's plans of attack,to the best of your knowledge. We let you and your friend here leave, unharmed, and live as free men among our people. In our land, you won't be persecuted for being what you are. Of course, we can't very well let you go back to your own nation. Especially not now that there's such damning evidence around..." He took out the photograph and waved it without letting Beilschmidt see it clearly. Beilschmidt watched it with some agitation, glancing furtively at the other prisoner and back. Bonnefoy put the picture away. "If you don't take the deal, of course, we'll have to proceed to other methods of interrogation. You have -" Bonnefoy looked at his watch - "five minutes to decide, starting now."  
"I'll never talk," said Beilschmidt.  
The boy gasped. "Lu? Ludwig? Is that you?"  
Beilschmidt hesitated before responding. "Yes. I'm here, Feliciano."  
"Ludwig!" The boy squirmed in his restraints. "How - how did you get here? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"  
"Shh. It's all right. I'm fine."  
The young man smiled. "Well, great! Keep on going. Never give in."  
"I won't."  
"I love you."  
"...Thank you."  
And the next few minutes passed in silence. The soldier was smiling. Beilschmidt looked as he usually did. Bonnefoy's watch ticked. Time ran out. "All right. Let's move on to persuasion, then." Bonnefoy drew the knife and placed the flat of it against the boy's neck. Beilschmidt's eyes widened in realization. The soldier panted, but said nothing. Bonnefoy dug the knife in at the base of the boy's jaw. He cried out, probably more in shock than pain. Then Bonnefoy drew the knife a ways along his face, separating the skin in a way that was sure to leave a scar. The prisoner sobbed as quietly as he could. Beilschmidt watched in abject horror, but said nothing; Bonnefoy continued, digging the blade in further. The boy screamed.  
"All right! Stop!" Beilschmidt strained against the ties. "I'll tell you what you want to know." He paused. "Wednesday, at eight AM..."  
Bonnefoy drove the blade into the boy's cheek. He was a very piteous crier; it was convenient. "The real plans, please."  
Beilschmidt breathed deeply, looking near tears himself. "Thursday. Two PM..." Bonnefoy took a pen and notebook from the desk and copied down Beilschmidt's words, looking up every so often to confirm that they were true. His eyes were closed as he recited, making it slightly more difficult to tell, but there was an urgency in his voice that implied sincerity.  
When he finished, Bonnefoy clicked the pen shut and closed the notebook. "Very well. We'll keep you in custody until we can confirm your information. After that, you are free men." He untied both and removed the younger man's blindfold. Bonnefoy couldn't decide which was more bizarre - the young soldier's huge grin despite his seeping wounds, or the smile on Beilschmidt's face. The lovers embraced each other at once, and apparently were too overwhelmed by emotion to keep from kissing, tenderly, right then and there. Bonnefoy turned away, disgusted. "Leave," he told them. "I have work to do."  
The two moved towards the door. "We'll have to get you cleaned up," Bonnefoy heard Beilschmidt murmur. Bile rose in his throat. He ran a hand along the pistol on the desk, picked it up, and shot Beilschmidt in the back of the head.  
The boy screamed as though he were dying himself as Beilschmidt fell. He made frantically to check for a pulse before he realized the sorry state of what was once Beilschmidt's face. At the sound of gunfire, guards from down the hall came running. The boy settled with cradling his lover's corpse without looking at the bloody mess, staring at Bonnefoy instead. "You lied," he said, looking to be more in shock than anything else.  
"I couldn't live with myself if I had let him live," Bonnefoy told him. The boy just stared, wide-eyed, mouth quivering. "He was a monster," Bonnefoy said, voice rising. A confused guard looked around the edge of the open door, gun drawn. They both ignored him. "There were too many who had to be avenged. Why should he have been allowed to live and love, when so many others could not because of him?"  
The boy said nothing. The blood on his face was beginning to congeal. He sobbed once, but caught himself quickly.  
"Go on," said Bonnefoy. "Leave this place. There is nothing left here for you. Live. I'm sure he would want you to."  
At this the boy screamed. He sprang up, punched the bewildered guard in the face, and grabbed the gun from him. "You wouldn't," was all Bonnefoy had time to say with a smile, before the boy emptied the entire clip into his chest.

Feliciano dropped the gun. The foreigner still had that wry smile on his face, eyes closed, slumped in his seat, six neat holes leaking blood onto his coat. This guard was still gaping at him, holding a bloody nose, but another one was running towards them from down the hall. Feliciano looked down. "He got a better corpse," he said. "A much nicer corpse. Than Ludwig had." He could now feel the cold mouth of a pistol being pressed against the back of his neck.


End file.
